It has become common practice, for convenience and/or style, for hat wearers to rest their eyeglasses (i.e., sunglasses, reading glasses, etc.) on their hats and other headwear when the glasses are not otherwise in use. As is well know, one method of doing this involves making stems of the glasses to abut opposite sides of the crown of the headwear. For brimmed headwear, the lenses (or frames holding the lenses) of the glasses can be made to rest on the brim. The size and configuration of the glasses in relation to the headwear determine how snugly the glasses will mate with the crown and thus how well the glasses will stay mounted to the headwear as the wearer moves about. In general, however, absent some mechanism to hold the glasses in place, glasses will typically not stay mounted to headwear if the wearer engages in any activity that involves significant head movement.
There have been many attempts to provide headwear with features for holding a pair of eyeglasses in place on the crown and/or brim of the headwear. For example, it is known to provide a pair of “stem holders” or “keepers” on opposing sides of a hat for receiving the stems of the glasses. Several such stem holder designs have been proposed, each claiming to retain a pair of glasses more securely on a hat than prior solutions. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,237,159; 6,647,554; 6,671,885; 6,792,619; 7,275,270; and 7,484,845.
However, none of these prior stem holder designs are capable of impeding movement of the lens portion of the glasses relative to the brim of the headwear (or the front of brimless headwear). As a result, such stem holders alone tend to be ineffective at preventing the glasses from too often falling from the hat. Other proposed solutions involve application of hardware (such as a clip or other retainer) to a hat brim or the front of the crown for receiving and holding the lenses or lens frames of the glasses. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,179,753 and United States Patent Publication No. 2007/0229759. Such solutions tend to be cumbersome in use and appearance and not aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, a need exists for headwear having improved features for more securely holding a pair of eyeglasses thereon.